Gifts of War

A Novel

During the Christmas Truce of 1914, a German gives a British soldier a photo and they make a pact. Hal, the British soldier, promises to find his enemy's English girlfriend, Sam, and let her know her fiance is alive and thinking of her. Several weeks later, Hal - now injured - is discharged from the army and fulfills his promise. But things take an unexpected turn when he meets the woman in the photo and falls in love with her himself. As their romance blossoms, Sam shares with Hal her most private confidence: her newborn son is of German lineage, information that threatens her reputation and job as a schoolteacher. Fearful that he will lose Sam, Hal holds tight to the secret - and the photograph- that brought them together.